The website www.inventor-link.com says that you are prohibited to link – or even refer – to them without their permission. Oops. According to their terms, you are not authorised to even look at their HTML code:
We also own all of the code, including the HTML code, and all content. As you may know, you can view the HTML code with a standard browser. We do not permit you to view such code since we consider it to be our intellectual property protected by the copyright laws. You are therefore not authorized to do so.
Law-breaker that I am, I decided to do so anyway – and found out why they don’t want anyone to see it: it’s horribly coded. It’s like the web standards movement never existed. Crimes against coding include:
- Multiple nested tables
- Inline styles and javascripts
- Strings of non-breaking spaces used for spacing
- Double breakspaces instead of paragraph tags
Here’s a sample piece of code (note: I have changed the colour codes in order to make it my own piece of work and not get threatened with court):
<p style="line-height:100%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;"> <span style="line-height:100%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;"> <font size="1" face="Arial" color="#888888">Lorem ipsum</font></span> <font size="1" face="Arial" color="#888888"> <span style="line-height:100%;">.</span></font> <span style="line-height:100%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;"> <font size="1" face="Arial" color="#888888"> Lorem ipsum</font></span>
It’s a museum piece. If anyone reading this is under the age of 25, you should take a good look; this is how HTML used to be written.
For all lawyers hired by Inventor Link: I looked at the HTML code, too. By the way, they are quite modern: they use Google Analytics!
Arjan [October 17th, 2007, 21:29]
Haha, unbelievable. Maybe we shouldn’t be looking at the site either as surely the information contained within is their intellectual property too?
Maybe isolating this one site for bad code is a little unfair as there are thousands of sites coded as poorly or worse but the fact that they don’t want you looking at their source code for fear that it may be copied is what makes their terms and conditions so comical :)
Dave Woods [October 18th, 2007, 11:09]
How dumb can you be?
If you send data to a users browser – they now own the full right to use and view that data (just not sell, claim a right too, etc..). I just makes me laugh when people try the “no right-click” javascript stuff to keep people from seeing the source or downloading images.
DUH! The fact that they see the images in their browser means they have already been downloaded onto their PC! That is how the browser works!
But ya, the best coders and designers don’t worry to much about that kind of stuff. Only 3rd-rate sites try that legal scare tacktick because it took all their creativity just to make that half-way decent page.
David [November 7th, 2007, 01:05]
i guess you’ve already violate inventor-link’s permission by mentioning them and linking as well ha ha :)
Tim Shadoz [November 15th, 2007, 21:13]
It’s common knowledge that these types of companies who purport to help out budding Edisons, are usually rip-off artists. In the fine print of the contract you sign (they seem to be very good at fine print technicalities) you basically give up all rights to your invention if it ever mass produced. Or if your invention is not very good, they ask for a large upfront “submission fee”, which they subsequently pocket, which will help them get your invention to the market.
So it’s not surprising to see such wording on their own site. They are a shifty unscrupulous untrustworthy bunch. To be fair, inventor-link “might” be one of the good guys. But if they are so precious about their html, I doubt they have very much to offer an inventor.
Gil Bates [December 9th, 2007, 12:24]